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I know, but is anyone surprised. Really, gambling is in that same circle as cigarettes and alcohol. Somehow the states have held on to their rights to exclusive domain over them within their borders whereas they lost about every other regulatory ability to the feds.

Ha! At the end of the day your internet connection does have to come to your house and somebody has to install it and the ISPs router in that state. Either the installation company (e.g. Qwest, SBC, Comcast) or the ISP if different have people paid on salary working in your state.

As a condition of doing bussiness the State can have it block or re-route IP addresses as a condition of the ISP doing bussiness in the state.

One can quibble about how the ISPs will be able to block dynamic changes in host IPs, but look if each hour the ISP does a DNS lookup on the domain name then blocks the resolved IP it wil be plenty effective.

That leaves the gambling sites to rely on Proxies, TOR, or constantly changing domain names, all of which will effectively gut their clientele.

The ultimate weapon for the state in this case is that state can legally declare all gambling debts unenforcable. If they allow cost recovery from VISA or Paypal, the gambling sites may not only find they can't do bussiness in Kentucky but that from VISA's point of view they can't do bussiness at all with VISA.

Given the latter death threat I suspect there's going to be cooperation on this at some level.

So if the state doesn't approve of a radio station can they shut down the transmitter in another state or demand that the station modify all radios to not receive their signal? This falls under violating interstate commerce and KentUHky will likely find itself being forced to reverse by the feds.

I believe the issue was largely that it blocked most online gambling but left online bets on horse-racing intact. This was deemed discriminatory. Had the US outlawed all online gambling, it would likely not have been subject to sanction.

That might be incredibly difficult to do. It would require either that the gambling sites collect SSNs (did they already?), or taxing the profits of companies not actually in the US. But I'm not sure jurisdiction would be there for the IRS to monitor such things, and sanctions might still be brought.

Treaties are approved by the Senate, not the states, and yes, there is a treaty (actually a series of treaties and annexes, I think) involved in joining the WTO. The president approves, but the Senate must consent.

Treaties occupy a spot between the Constitution and statutory law. Law must conform to adopted treaties, but treaty language can be overridden by the Constitution.

No, its not. A human right is not something given to you its something all people have by right of their existence. The freedom to voice your own mind (freedom of speech) is not something that is provided to you as all people have that ability (in one form or another).

Socialized health care is an entitlement just like public education and social security. Entitlements are not a bad thing but they are not to be treated as rights. The bill of rights does not 'give rights' it restricts the government from taking away rights people are naturally endowed with.

"Maybe where you (and Sarah Palin) are from treatment for a broken bone or chronic illness is "hand holding" but here in Montana its considered a basic necessity."

And maybe you (and Joe Biden) decides the desirable ends of an entielment merit destroying the purity and uniqueness of human rights by calling every good thing to be given a 'right' but here in reality rights and entitlements are different things.

Personally I am all for socialized Medicine *at the state level* I am also for free college education *at the state level* and Living wage enforcement *at the state level*. The more local the government the more they should be the ones who I have to interact with on a day to day level.

"Education is much the same way, though everyone around here does think that's a government function (though no one wants to pay the teachers...)"

Are there no private schools in Montana? What? there are... Seems to me people think its an entitlement the state can provide but its not solely the states job.

"And having social programs doesn't inherently increase the power of the state. It's poor implementation that does that."

It does over those benefiting from the programs (and those paying for them). Federal health care is a way for folks from California or South Carolina to have a voice in what conditions I have to meet to get care at a hospital. My Grandfather had little say over what treatment he was allowed to get for cancer in a socialized system.

"Socialized health care should be handed off to a team of highly skilled and respected health care providers."

Right because that's what our experience with the ever growing role of the federal government in K12 has demonstrated... The government will hand off that roll to a team of skilled and respected providers... Its not like they have a history of growing bureaucracies that are outperformed by private institutions (Private Schools / Charter schools) and self service people (home schoolers) spending far less money to do the same job.

"The government just foots the bill. Maybe you take issue with that last part."

Nobody, not you, not me, and most certainly not the government foots a bill without having a major say in how the money is used. I don't mind paying my taxes one bit, and if there is a real need I don't mind them going up. Personally I would rather send 7% of my check to DC and 28% to St. Paul (not counting SS, Medicare,...,...) but its not the money coming out I mind.

But that's not what they're doing.They're not rerouting traffic in the state.They just took the domain names.As in they can send joe blogs in japan to their own servers when he looks up one of those sites.

Imagine that you ran a mail order buisness, your "domain name" is your postal address.You live and run your buisness from Iceland say or China.A judge in an american state decides that you are competing with local buisnesses and signs an order taking your postal address and from then on any post sent from anywhere be it America, Europe or elsewhere will not be sent to you but rather to the judge.

The basis of course being that your postal address is an item required to do illegal buisness with people in an american state.

Clear enough for everyone?

The best solution would be for any registrars outside this juristiction to simply list the correct ownership information for the domains .

I think, in my mind, that begs the question: What do we do when an Islamic state with access to Domain Registry, decides they want to take control of all domain names that they feel are unacceptable to their beliefs and laws? Is the US just the big bully on the block when it comes to controlling Domain Names in this respect? What if Nevada wants to assume control over those Domain Names and deploy them under 'Eminent Domain' laws in order to give to a 'responsible party' in order to create more public reve

It's still a bad move. Basically, the judge should have thrown the case out because it's a piece of shit (or whatever the legal term is). If any of the gambling sites had corporate sites in Kentucky or web-hosting in Kentucky, then the suit has some legal basis.

But since they don't, it's setting a bad precedent of "Well, it's illegal here, so our laws apply to the website no matter where it's located".

Yep. Even though the lawyers argued Kentucky lacked jurisdiction, he ruled against them. Interestingly they also argued that a domain name being part of a contracted service as opposed to a property that they owned, the judge also dismissed that argument too.

Best comparison: you run a mail order buisness in europe which competes with Kentuky buisnesses.Kentuky judge confiscates your postal address(it of course being your property) and has all your mail sent to whoever he choses.

It's not really like that at all. It's more like what you said but the judge intercepts all mail originating to and from your address from within the state.

You can't compare a virtual address to a physical one. No matter what scenario you want to contrive, if it is legal in your home country or whatever, then your physical presence and physical address allows you to participate in whatever there. This is more about doing illegal business inside borders that have outlawed specific behavior which happens to b

I think this is probably going to be a good thing in the long run. This case should move past the state level, as a federal decision on this would set national precedent. The question might even have to go to the SCOTUS, since it's not really clear how states interact with the Internet, and this might get surreal enough to touch on things like foreign relations and the ability for the executive branch to make treaties.

It's not the wholesale grab of domain names some people want you to believe.

The issue is not whether it's a "wholesale grab" or not. The issue is that if Kentucky has authority to seize a domain name used for gambling, any state has authority to seize a domain name used for anything in state law, and the net is quickly reduced to the lowest common denominator.

(Indeed, seems to me - though IANAL - that if this nutcase theory of jurisdiction holds, any country hostile to free speech can seize domain names left and right. Germany can seize "HolocaustDeniers.org", Russian can seize "PutinSucks.com".)

Can a Kentucky court force someone in another state to do something? Another country? They can ban it all they like, but if they can't actually compel the person who runs the servers to turn them off it's just legal masturbation.

(Indeed, seems to me - though IANAL - that if this nutcase theory of jurisdiction holds, any country hostile to free speech can seize domain names left and right. Germany can seize "HolocaustDeniers.org", Russian can seize "PutinSucks.com".)

Well, they can try, but I don't know how they actually would... the reason Kentucky was able to do this is because (as I understand the mechanics of it) ICANN is incorporated in the U.S., and they served them with a court order.

ICANN probably should have just told them to get stuffed, but they didn't (probably because they didn't want to get dragged into it, or get fined for being in contempt). But it's because they're located in, and incorporated in, the U.S. that gives a penny-ante court in Kentucky any sort of leverage.

A court in Germany could try serving ICANN with papers ordering them to turn over HolocaustDeniers.com or whatever, but I don't see why ICANN would comply -- and, more importantly, I don't see what sort of leverage a court in Germany would have to force them to. They could probably do the same thing to the registrar that controls the ".de" TLD, which I assume is incorporated in Germany, but not if it was a gTLD (.com,.net,.org, &c.).

I'm also not sure that the court in Kentucky would have had as much success at grabbing the domains if they'd been registered under the country code of some other country. E.g., if the site had been "GreatGambling.co.de", and they had ordered ICANN to transfer it, ICANN might have been able to say to them with a straight face that it was impossible, and they'd have to talk to the registrar for.de, which would be some company in Germany. But they can't pass the buck and claim it's beyond their control when it's a gTLD, since they oversee them.

The bottom line to all of this is that people need to realize that all the gTLDs are not some sort of international zone. At the end of the day they are basically.us domains without the explicit ".us" at the end. If you're doing something that's considered shady, or might possibly be considered shady, by virtually any court in the U.S., you would be better off getting a domain in a ccTLD from a country that's more tolerant, rather than a gTLD domain. Anyone with a gTLD domain has it basically at the whim and mercy of any state court judge in the United States; depending on the subject matter or the purpose of the site, that might be an improvement over some other country (Chinese democracy, lambasting various monarchies), or it might be a huge liability (gambling, DRM breaking, certain types of porn).

The book Blown to Bits we previously discussed [slashdot.org] goes into this in some detail but there is a clear, and increasing, problem that legislatures are very far behind the curve on the global nature of the internet. Not only can district courts in the US have a say, potentially, on the content hosted on a server in another country - let alone another state - but it also creates a pressure to host your servers in the country with the most lax laws around content control.
The application of laws designed to deal with print or broadcast media being applied to the internet - where ISPs are neither publishers nor distributors, from a strict legal perspective - is fraught with difficulty.
The application of social laws, like restricting your citizens access to gambling, also has an inherent problem when the social sphere in question is virtual. The law givers reaction often seems to be to target the technology when the social problem is what the law is meant to address.

What a lie! Freedom so long as it is granted by the state is more like it. I should be able to have a domain name regardless of what it says. And on internet gambling in general, my money is my money, so I should be allowed to gamble with it if I so choose. If the government did its job and was there to protect the people rather to limit them, they would investigate online casinos for fairness and punish those that aren't playing square or if they are offshores, warn consumers about their practices.

Including by The Register. The judge is upholding his own ruling now that the companies that lost their domains get a chance to object. The loss of domains was done under a sealed order.

I can't find any legitimate reason for this to have been done under a sealed order (what were they going to do... hide the domain names), or before arguments were made. Here's hoping this gets fixed when it is actually appealed.

As for the circuit judge, Wingate (heh... like the old proxy software...), I think he's either making a political play to his career, or has a heck of a power complex. Next up, watch him issue an order that takes away my/. account for criticizing him. -.-

I can't find any legitimate reason for this to have been done under a sealed order (what were they going to do... hide the domain names), or before arguments were made. Here's hoping this gets fixed when it is actually appealed.

It was probably to hide the names of the domains in order to secure them before trial.

KY hasn't really taken the domains, they have frozen control of them in an attempt to control assess while another procedure takes place. This is similar to the feds locking a bank account befor

Every day there's news here about Government trying to control the Internet. China with their great firewall, the UK and their laws, Australia and their version of internet control. Government gets crazy when they sense there's something they can't control. Judges, Senators, Presidents, the whole system.

What makes me sad is that I always thought it'd be harder to 'control' the internet, but it seems they'll do it sooner or later.

that attempting to control the internet also destroys much that is good about the internet. you can't turn the internet into a controlled medium like television without also making it essentially useless for the things that made it useful in the first place

the point is, you really can't warp the internet, you can only kill it. and the absence of the internet is not something people will accept once they get a taste of it

Isn't Kentucky where tobacco comes from? Why doesn't a judge in, say, New York state order the seizure of the name Kentucky for poisoning the good people of New York?

It probablyt doesn't really matter. The judge is going to leave office soon and seek a more public office, probably running for the Senate or state governor (this can't be anything but a publicity stunt) and the order will get overturned on appeal.

...5...4...3...2...1
A state judge rules that state officials have the right to take domain names registered elsewhere and belonging to organizations based elsewhere? This one is not staying in the state courts.

Which, in fact, is a complete mock-up of how things work.
Are you going to stop going on ski trips because you can visit an ice skating rink? Are you going to stop taking a week at Mallorca because you can go to the solarium?
As he says, horse racing is a Key Tourism Industry. People go to WATCH, to experience it. Being able to place bets on the net is not going to satisfy that desire. It's like saying, "Oh, I got this CD of my favorite band, so now I don't have to go to their concert."
It just doesn't w

If this goes far enough, there will be threats of action regarding a blatant disregard of international commerce treaties. Seems to me that point came up before when the US tried to shutdown off-shore gambling.

Oh wait, so it is not about some southern Christian social conservative right wing kind of thing to keep people from sin, but all about political pandering and "online gambling drains the state of money by undermining horse racing." ( http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10052137-38.html [cnet.com] )

By seizing the domain name, the State now owns or controls the domain name. It owns or controls it in the home state, and by virtue of the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, it owns or controls it in all the states. This is part one--the acquisition of the right.

Part two--the enforcement of the right--will be very interesting. Destruction of the domain's ability to do business in the home State appears to be a trivial problem. Destruction of the ability to do business in each of the other states is a tedious process, but thanks to the full faith and credit clause, a doable thing.

The dormant Commerce Clause, however, looms over all of this as the big Green Monster looms over Fenway. In short, the several states can't go writing laws that straightjacket interstate commerce. But addressing that question is probably too much trouble for to take for the two or three people that will read this post.

As a former resident, I can say that this is no surprise. Kentucky is probably one of the most corrupt states in the union. The entire state is governed by old money and the horse racing industry. Every governor in my life time has had a major scandal of some sort. Kentucky is the best argument against States' rights that I can think of. The bridges on Interstate 65 have been being painted for about 8 years now because of the corrupt transportation cabinet forcing various contractors to pay bribes that drov

Many of those domains have ownership outside the United States, and they think they can just "seize" them? If this was actual Real Estate we were discussing here, wouldn't that qualify as empire-building? Oh, wait, I forgot, that's my country's new shtick, isn't it? The Empire of the United States of America?:p

I'll tell you what I REALLY think this is about: They're trying to create the foundations for government censorship of the internet in general. Next step, if this is successful, would be to seize t

Apparently the law of the state of Kentucky is applicable to any server on the internet, regardless of country of origin.

The law of the state of Kentucky, like the laws of any nation or locality, is applicable only where the authorities of that nation or locality can send people with guns, or convince the locals to point guns on their behalf.

So the trick is to host your servers and register your domain in a country where a court order from Kentucky is going to be recycled as toilet paper.

Of course, Kentucky may then try to firewall that nation to keep its citizens from accessing your site. But if China can't do it very effectively, I doubt Kentucky can either.

First of all, if you are under the jurisdiction of a country that will enforce the laws of another state, then you will find that locating the server into another state will not save you from prosecution.

Second, if you are doing business within another state, it is your obligation to conform to the laws not the state's obligation to stop you from doing business. There are some international laws that might supersede that but those are rares. I know this ma

That's basically the case. Although I don't know about the Internet at large, you could at least shut down ICANN with a few well-placed court orders from any U.S. state you wanted to.

This is because -- as I understand it, anyway -- ICANN is incorporated in the United States, specifically in California. Court orders from other U.S. states are enforceable in California because of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution. So if a judge in some state (say Kentucky) orders ICANN to do something, d

My money, my choice to be stupid or not.Nothing wrong with gambling as long as people are fully aware that the house always makes the profit in the end. I worked in a dog track for 2 years and on more than a few occasions someone got pissed off after losing and started shouting about how it was a big scam!... seemed to take the wind out of them when I somply agrees with them than yes it was a big scam, what did they think paid for all the nice things there. For the majority it's simply entertainment, they p

The most famous -- and only known â" case of a state legislature in the US attempting to create by law a new value for pi was that of Indiana in 1897; it has become legendary, and the basis of myth and hoax. Although it has come to represent the occasional ignorance of innumerate legislators, it was not so obviously a bad idea at the time.

The bill was introduced to the house by legislator Mr. Record, but it was reported that "Mr. Record knows nothing of the bill with the exception that he introduced it by request of Dr. Edwin Goodwin of Posey County, who is the author of the demonstration."[3] The bill began in the Committee on Canals (aka the Committee on Swamp Lands), whose chairman tried unsuccessfully to send it to the Committee on Education.

Redefining the value of pi seems not to have been its principal goal, but a side effect. In fact, the bill seems to have offered four different, new values for pi. Rather, the bill was aimed at benefiting its author, who claimed to have patented a new method for "squaring the circle", which he proposed to let the state of Indiana use free of charge if they would pass his bill! Its opening statement is clear:

A bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the legislature of 1897.

To lend credibility to his claim, Dr. Goodwin gave these credentials:

Section 3. In further proof of the value of the author's proposed contribution to education, and offered as a gift to the State of Indiana, is the fact of his solutions of the trisection of the angle, duplication of the cube and quadrature having been already accepted as contributions to science by the American Mathematical Monthly, the leading exponent of mathematical thought in this country. And be it remembered that these noted problems had been long since given up by scientific bodies as unsolvable mysteries and above man's ability to comprehend.

It seems that Dr. Goodwin had already solved two of the great unsolvable problems of ancient geometry and claimed to have solved a third with his method of squaring the circle.

The bill made it through three readings and votes in the House, and its first reading in the Senate. It was evidently seen as of economical benefit, since Indiana would save royalties on the patent, and the legislators proclaimed themselves unfit to comprehend the details of the bill anyway. The finale was dramatic and down to the wire:[4]

That the bill was killed appears to be a matter of dumb luck rather than the superior education or wisdom of the Senate. It is true that the bill was widely ridiculed in Indiana and other states, but what actually brought about the defeat of the bill is recorded by Prof. C.A. Waldo in an article he wrote for the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science in 1916. The reason he knows is that he happened to be at the State Capitol lobbying for the appropriation of the Indiana Academy of Science, on the day the Housed passed House Bill 246.... The roll was then called and the bill passed its third and final reading in the lower house. A member then showed the writer [i.e. Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know. That evening the senators were properly coached and shortly thereafter as it came to its final reading in the upper house they threw out with much merriment the epoch making discovery of the Wise Man from the Pocket.

...Gambling in all cases is a victimless crime as you have lost only what you have wagered...

Until you blow your rent/mortgage money, food money, life savings and your house...then it directly affects the gambler's family. Not so victimless anymore is it?

For the record, I am against this ruling. Kentucky has no business taking away domain names from someone way the heck outside their jurisdiction but gambling is known to be addictive and has caused massive problems for many, including losing money, houses, jobs and marriages. That said, instead of seizing domain names and outlawing gambling, t